Organized crime money launderer loses bid to have charges dropped over delay
Talal Fouani must now proceed to sentencing
A Calgary man who admitted to laundering money for organized crime will not see his charges stayed despite the case taking more than 30 months to make its way through the courts.
Talal Fouani, 48, was charged in June 2022 and pleaded guilty nine months later, in March 2023.
Fouani has yet to be sentenced. Defence lawyer Greg Dunn filed a Jordan application arguing his client's charges should be stayed due to unreasonable delay in the case.
The Supreme Court says cases in provincial courts should take no longer than 18 months to conclude but judges must take into account who is responsible for any delay beyond that timeline.
On Wednesday, Justice Greg Stirling denied Dunn's application following a hearing in September, finding that much of the delay in the case falls at the feet of the defence, including 14 applications filed by Fouani's previous lawyer, Yoav Niv.
"I find in considering all of the various factors … including the case complexity, the number of defence applications, the extent of disclosure and the requirement of a lengthy Gardiner hearing, the sentencing has not taken markedly longer than is reasonable in all of the circumstances," wrote Stirling in his Jordan decision.
A two-week Gardiner hearing — a process during sentencing to settle on facts that are in dispute — was scheduled to take place but never happened.
'Very stressful and upsetting'
Despite his dismissal of the Jordan application, Stirling was sympathetic to Fouani's situation.
"Undoubtedly the ongoing uncertainty and the very lengthy delay in the sentencing here has been very stressful and upsetting for Mr. Fouani," the judge wrote in his 15-page decision.
Much of Fouani's anxiety stems from a shooting that took place two weeks after he was charged.
In August 2022, Fouani was "seriously wounded and his wife killed in a targeted shooting that Mr. Fouani believed was related to his charges before the court," Stirling noted.
The accused in the shooting, Michael Tyrel Arnold, 35, of Sherwood Park, was arrested by Edmonton police. His first-degree murder and attempted murder trial begins next month.
When Fouani pleaded guilty in March 2023, he entered the plea but did not agree to any facts of the crime. A conviction was never entered, marking just one of the "unusual" features of the case, Stirling said on Wednesday.
In the Jordan hearing, Dunn argued that for that reason, the trial was still "pre-verdict" and that the entire timeline of the case should be counted toward delay.
Stirling disagreed, finding that "the entry of a guilty plea has legal consequences."
"A guilty plea even without facts puts an end to the trial process," the judge wrote.
'Unconventional and chaotic' application
Stirling then considered the sentencing delay, much of which he attributed to the numerous defence applications filed by Niv.
"The publication ban, in particular, was advanced in an unconventional and chaotic way, with [Niv] abandoning and then reinstating the application, at one point refusing to participate in the accused's own application for a permanent ban but insisting the interim publication bans remain in place," wrote Stirling.
Niv's other filings included an abuse of process application, an in-camera hearing application, a constitutional challenge to the definition of "criminal organization," an application to vacate the guilty plea and an application to have the judge recuse himself.
When the recusal application failed in November 2023, Dunn took over.
Mexican cartels involved
Fouani's charges related to a police investigation into a massive, cross-border drug trafficking operation involving Mexican cartels.
At the time charges were laid, police said the $55-million drug bust involving nearly one metric tonne of methamphetamine and six kilograms of cocaine was the largest ever in Alberta.
Last September, just weeks before Fouani's Jordan hearing, the Crown stayed the charges faced by his co-accused, including the alleged leader of the organized crime syndicate, Ricco King.
The move took place the day before the co-accused were set to make their own Jordan application and while they were in the middle of secret federal court proceedings.
This is the second time in five years King has walked away from international drug importation charges.
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